Sunday Feature: Our Birmingham Fathers

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Our Birmingham Fathers

BBC Radio 3 - Sunday Feature, Our Birmingham Fathers

Three people meet to share experiences of grieving for their musician fathers.

Three people are grieving their musician fathers and dealing with their legacies. As they meet and share their experience, the worlds of folk, classical and ska come together.

Three people across Birmingham are grieving the recent loss of their musician fathers. Each is busy piecing together their father's life story and breathing new life into their musical legacy.

Their parents were from different musical worlds: Lionel Martin, the Jamaican saxophonist known as Saxa, who found fame with the 80s ska group The Beat; David Hindley, a composer who spent much of his life creating intricate classical piano music from recorded bird song; and Paul Murphy - singer, songwriter and mentor to many musicians in the city.  

Their children come together, from three different areas of Birmingham, to tell each other their father's story and talk about their search for healing through music and memory.

Jo Hindley nursed her father David through years of dementia. In coming to terms with her loss, she is also beginning to understand and champion his unique gifts as a composer. Immersed in his vast archive, she is also dramatically changing her own life to confront the loss of the natural world that was his inspiration.

Francilla Martin remembers seeing her father on Top of the Pops, meeting David Bowie, entrancing everybody. Saxa was a huge personality and a mentor to a generation of Birmingham musicians, but never gave interviews. In writing his story she hopes to make sense of her own relationship with him.

Mark Murphy can’t yet bring himself to listen to some of his dad’s music. ‘Grief takes its own time’ he says, as he thinks of his dad’s early days with Van Morrison and Lemmy, of unreleased recordings, and what might happen to the amazing, elaborate tree-house from where Paul Murphy streamed folk concerts around the world.

With thanks to:

Rolf Hind for his performances of David Hindley's solo piano music: Skylark, Woodlark and Nightingale
Thomas Uhlman and John Bryden for their performances of David Hindley's piano duet: The Cuckoo's Nest.
Sasha Owen for the recordings of David Hindley's memorial concert.
Robin Valk and Valeria Rispo for the recordings at Paul Murphy's treehouse
Ska Machine: Andy Gayle, Andy Peate, Darren Dolczech, Mike Green, John McKinley and Ash, for their recordings with Saxa
And thanks to Jo Hindley, Mark Murphy and Francilla Martin for the use of their private recordings.

Producer: Melvin Rickarby
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Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

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